With her appointment of a Philadelphia Police Department deputy commissioner, with on-the-ground experience to tame hellish Kensington, Cherelle Parker has made a move to establish herself as Philadelphia’s first “law and order” mayor since Frank Rizzo.
That sound you just heard was progressives plotzing.
Even if you don’t speak Yiddish, you can guess what that means.
Here’s why I am going there.
The first thing Parker did after taking the oath of office was to declare a state of emergency in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, addressing public safety.
This is something her predecessor, the blubbering and equivocating Jim Kenney refused to do, even as homicides soared on his watch.
With that declaration, Parker was keeping a campaign promise.
During the campaign, she also pledged to use Terry stops, which is the Constitutional use of “stop and frisk.” She also toyed with the idea of calling on the National Guard for help in quelling Kensington.
Both these ideas were rejected as too harsh by her conservative Republican opponent David Oh.
Yes, on law and order Parker ran to the right of the Republican, and entered a mirror universe of the one occupied by Woke radical D.A. Larry Krasner.
Prediction: This mixture of oil and water will lead to a public explosion between the mayor and D.A., sooner rather than later. Extreme prediction: In the 2025 D.A. primary, former prosecutor Derek Green, the mayoral candidate who bowed out and endorsed Parker, will challenge Krasner with Parker’s backing.
It was largely Parker’s anti-crime stance, along with her traditional Democratic policies, that led me to endorse her in the primary, mostly to stop Helen Gym.
The last mayor to endorse “stop and frisk” was Michael Nutter. He used it, Kenney cut it to the bone, Parker is restoring it.
Nutter and Parker have this in common — they are Black and Black Philadelphians are the group most cruelly affected by crime.
This brings me to a 2020 Gallup report that measured how welcome police presence is in African-American neighborhoods. 81% of Black Americans said they wanted the same or more police presence in their neighborhood. It’s only white progressives like Kenney who think Black people want less police presence.
In good conscience, I must add Black people want a friendly and courteous police force in their neighborhoods, but, without doubt, they want cops.
Parker plans to give them at least 300 more, which will be a challenge as policing as a profession has become as popular as crack whore.
Recruiting has been a problem since even before the George Floyd death, and the subsequent suicidal Defund the Police movement from the Left. (It has largely been discredited now, with mamy Democrats denying they had anything to do with it. Except I never heard a Republican call for defunding.)
When he was police commissioner, the highly regarded Charles Ramsay told me trying to hire officers, especially Black officers, was like pulling teeth.
He told me PPD tried recruiting on Black college campuses, where students said, basically, you are offering me a job that pays less than I can make in business, where the people I am protecting hate me, and where I can get killed doing it.
Not exactly irresistible.
Philly cops start at $61,888, which actually is pretty damn good.
But not good enough.
The state police start at 65K and most people like them in those adorable Smokey Bear hats. Wealthy suburbs pay even more with less danger — starting salary in Radnor, for example, is $81,842, rising quickly to more than $100,000.
Back to Kensington.
Parker appointed three-decade veteran Pedro Rosario, who now becomes the highest-ranking Hispanic on the force. Much more importantly, he has spent most of his career in the Badlands and basically has been named the new sheriff in Dodge, tasked with cleaning up the notorious open-air drug market that has received national media attention.
Call him the Czar of Kensington.
I am sure Rosario has his own ideas.
Let’s hope they start with three words:
Enforce The Law.
Despite what Larry Krasner thinks, drug sales and use are both illegal. Not to mention potentially lethal.
Here’s my four-point plan:
1- Arrest all drug users and pushers.
2- Jail all pushers, which might mean finding a work-around Krasner. Bring in the feds to prosecute.
3- Offer users an option of jail, which is the hard way to get clean, or voluntary enrollment in a treatment program. That might require funding from the feds, which should not be too hard to get given Joe and Jill Biden’s attachment to Philadelphia. (Get the money before the election. Just in case.)
4- Like with shampoo, repeat.
Is the plan foolproof? No, nothing is foolproof.
But we know the results of non-enforcement, don’t we?
Stu,
The problem is prohibition. Prohibition never works. Ever. Push the pushers and users out of Kensington and they’ll just move the problem to another neighborhood. 1There will never be enough police. It’s a game of Whack a mole. Like with shampoo, repeat. 1
I get your point but there is a HUGE difference between beer and heroin. Especially when so many drugs are laced with fentanyl.
Stu, do you worry that your beer or booze is laced with fentanyl (or methanol as often happened during prohibition)? No, because they are now legal. The sellers have quality control and know that there are a million lawyers dying to sue them.
The reason we have illicit drugs that are adulterated is because they are illicit. There is no recourse by the buyers against the sellers of dangerous or adulterated illegal drugs.
If you’ve got a realistic plan that solves that problem, I’m all ears, but you’d be the first.
Why would you vote for someone who has let record number’s of fentanyl to enter our country. Who amongst us have not been affected by this drug problem. The Biden administration is responsible for all these deaths.
As usual, you are clueless and have exactly no facts to back up your ridiculous opinions. But by all means keep blathering. It entertains all the readers with brains.
Look at government statistics dummy. You are clueless.
Optimistic observations, Stu. Let’s hope it plays out as you predict.
Push them out of Philly and make it Camden’s problem.
Also Regarding Law and Order:
“The Traffic Stop” Bill passed due to the initiative of Councilman Thomas has backfired on all of us as dangerously as did the Defund the Police movements.
Immediately after that bill passed there was a noticeable increase in speeding, weaving in and out, tailgating, running red lights, gang racing on all our big streets and extremely bad and dangerous driving all over the city. What policeman wanted to be open to reputation destroying, smearing accusations for stopping a dangerous driver, after that bill was passed by so many Council members?
Mayor Parker, please rescind that bill immediately as another smart initiative to regain Law and Order, and safety too, on our streets.
Gardner A., I too feel that bill should be immediately rescinded. The problem is even if it is rescinded it will take quite some time for things to filter down where we see a noticeable improvement in how people are driving.
The beneficial effects can happen immediately, when..
Our mayor sets the cultural tone for all traffic stops and all arrests by saying, “I instruct our police to stop any and all dangerous drivers and any and all suspected criminals.”
“Any and all, not matter who or what.”
Simple, fair, legal and honorable for all of us.
Establish the new (old) Philadelphia culture, that crime is crime, bad behavior is bad behavior…no matter who!
And rescind that traffic stop bill which backfired so badly on the whole city.
Stu,
Why aren’t beer and boozed laced with fentanyl (or methanol as happened during prohibition)? Because they are legal products and the sellers know that they are in deep doodoo if they sell adulterated products. With illicit products and markets, buyers have no recourse if the sellers poison them.
Sure, the world would be a better place if there were no addicts or addicting drugs, but that’s not the world we live in. In the real world, prohibition has failed again and again.
I’m in 100% agreement with you. Legalize.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/legalizing-drugs-would-benefit-united-states-legalizing-drugs-p-32
Did 70,000 Americans (adjust for smaller population) die annually from bad gin during prohibition?
There IS an argument for legalization. There IS an argument for “safe” injection sites. I do not accept the arguments.
They wouldn’t OD if the product they were purchasing was legal. That’s the point. If we are interested in harm reduction, we need to have legal products of known purity. You don’t worry about the purity of the booze you buy, do you?
Some people are simply bay shit crazy.
Legalize it, tax it maybe even give instruction at schools on proper hypodermic safety.
Do yourself a favor and take the subway around 6:30 am, come up to the street and walk east on market.
Then tell me about legalizing heroin.
We are already at risk with the decriminalization of marijuana. I live driving down the highway alongside someone sucking on a pen.
I already have given you my opinion on legalization. Need I repeat it?
Apparently you people have never been to Kensington Ave. Or the Morgue. Or to the funeral of a person who has lost a child to an OD. I’m sure they would disagree.
Well I have to both. And the fact that drugs are illegal and not regulated did not preclude either the Kensington mess or the overdose deaths.
And I have been to the morgue. I used to teach victimology at Penn. Again, the criminalization of drugs has done nothing to mitigate deaths as they have been illegal for decades and here we are.
There were three parts to that post, also,I’m sure that ANY cop could find about ten million reasons to find what you are saying to be wrong. Teaching at Penn is much different than being on the street. So go down to Kensington Ave. and give it a shot, literally, see how it works for you.
Stu- on an unrelated matter, I was watching Inside Story and they were discussing the change on leadership for the city commissioners. Bob Brady actually said having a Democrat as Chairman would advance the goal or re-electing Joe Biden. Am I nuts or are these Commissioners supposed to be nonpartisan whose ONLY job is to insure safe and fair elections in the city, not advancing one party’s agenda?
Are you SURE that is exactly what Brady said, because helping ANYONE is NOT the mandate of the commission.
Because, you know, the lock-’em-up-law-and-order approach to drugs has been such a ringing success the past 50 or so years. Where, exactly would you put drug users? Oh, prison. Where they will, of course, be rehabilitated and become productive, law-abiding citizens.
Exactly what drugs are you on these days, Stu?
Try reading with both eyes. I said users would get a CHOICE of prison or supervised rehab. Or maybe you don’t believe in rehab. Your solution is to leave the Kensington zombies to their fate?
◦ Police officers working the streets of Philadelphia are receiving mixed messages sent by the District Attorney (Krasner), City Council (Driving Equity Bill), City Solicitor’s Office (Bailey Agreement), Mayor’s Office (Crime Emergency, increase in Stop and frisk, Terry Stops) along with the anti police sentiment that exists. Working the streets in Philadelphia is extremely dangerous and a large segment of the residency don’t support the police. There were a large number of Philadelphia Police Officers who were shot at let alone shot at and injured from criminal’s gunfire during the last couple of years. These missed shootings are never talked about in the press. When I was a young Police Officer the Commissioner made us a promise and he said “ when trying to do right and things go bad, I will support you. When you intentionally commit criminal acts I will arrest you. “. The Police Officer working the streets are guarded for their safety. Are they confused which direction to follow and wonder who truly supports them. So when situations where a police shooting occurs what segment of our residency and politicians will make points over Police involved shootings. Walter Wallace comes to mind. Everyone is a Monday Morning quarterback judging the officers actions. When somebody is attacking you with a knife and you have seconds to react what would you do? So when the Mayor wants to enforce the law in Kensington, I hope she has the Political Capital to back the officers she asked to enforce the law.

I have been asking Derek to run against Krasner since the day he left the Mayor’s race. He will be an excellent candidate AND an excellent DA. Derek can win in a wonderful landslide IF and ONLY IF the Dem Party exerts control and ONLY Derek runs against Krasner in the Dem primary. Anyone who knows Derek, please encourage him to do this. He will gain widespread support!
Also so correct, the driving equity bill (what a crock…) has to be repealed asap. Marked decline in driver behavior that is a serious threat to us all on the road. Some people simply sould not be behind the wheel, regardless of color.
Amen for Best Wishes for a Cleaner, Saner, Kinder City. And Best Wishes to Madame Mayor Parker.